Francis Wood, the Maryland woman who’s husband murdered her and their three children before killing himself had a blog. She maintained the blogspot blog What am I supposed to do now, where she blogged about personal issues including the stress her husband was under with his new job and the fact that she was taking an anti-depressant.
It’s kind of creepy to read.
She recently blogged about one of her children having emergency appendix surgery. It’s somewhat unsettling to read when you realize this young boy who needed surgery only a month ago is now dead, brutally murdered by his own father. Before shooting him with a .25 caliber handgun, he reportedly cut him repeatedly with a knife.
Reading her blog made me think of something I had never thought about before: what happens to your blog when you die?
Since Francis Wood had her blog over on Google’s free blogging service Blogspot, I imagine her blog will be around for quite awhile. Since there are no fees to pay to keep it online, it very well may be floating about the World Wide Internet Web for years to come.
Since I have my blog on AQHost, a paid hosting site, I imagine it would only be around for a month or two after I kick the proverbial bucket and can no longer make the monthly payment. Then again, I pay my monthly hosting fee with an automatic credit card payment. Maybe it would continue taking up Internet space, at least until my card was canceled.
And what happens to your Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook page when you are now longer sucking oxygen? I’m not so sure that I like the idea of my Facebook or Twitter page living longer than me. Maybe there should be some kind of deadman’s switch that requires you to log-on once a week. If you don’t, you will be presumed dead. I don’t want to die and have my fake friends on Twitter and Facebook leaving fake messages about my demise.
Steve
/ April 20, 2009Put me down as all for the deadman switch, so long as that’s what everyone calls it, and bloggers are informed of its existence in the same stark language in which you put it: “If you do not log-in to your account for a period of one week, you will be presumed dead and your blog will be deleted.”
That’s cold.
Adam
/ April 20, 2009“Legacy Locker Hands Over the Keys to Your Online Life When You Die” http://lifehacker.com/5200973/legacy-locker-hands-over-the-keys-to-your-online-life-when-you-die
also: “Death Switch Sends Out Emails Upon Your Demise” http://lifehacker.com/5170883/death-switch-sends-out-emails-upon-your-demise
This is not a bad idea, and something I have been thinking about…
Patty from Quartz Hill
/ April 22, 2009Okay, now you have really bummed me out. Sigh.